The Marked Girl

by Lindsey Klingele

  Liv raised an eyebrow. “You think I would?”

  “You did fail to mention the markings on your back.”

  “I didn’t exactly know they were relevant.”

  “Yes, and maybe there were other things that happened that day that are relevant as well. Try to remember everything. What made you follow me?”

  Cedric’s eyes met hers, and their blue was so bright, she had to turn away, toward the motel window. His reflection there was muted, easier to handle.

  “I don’t really know,” Liv said, “I guess I wanted to finally figure out who you were, and what you were doing under the bridge that night. Why you were crawling into a hole in a museum wall. That was pretty weird. And then there was . . .”

  “What?” Cedric leaned forward, eager.

  Liv gestured to their reflected images. There she was, with her flyaway hair and well-worn jeans. And there was Cedric, with his broad shoulders and annoyingly clear skin.

  “That. There was also that.”

  Cedric’s reflection looked confused, while Liv’s turned red.

  Liv barreled on. “I mean, look at you. You look like you just stepped out of an Abercrombie ad.”

  Cedric tilted his head. “I do not know what that means.”

  “You were hot, all right?”

  His eyes remained blank.

  “Cute. Handsome. Stupid good-looking. Do any of those words mean anything in Caelum?”

  Cedric didn’t move a muscle. Then, one corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Some of them, yes.”

  “Good.” Liv’s voice was sharp. “I doubt any of that matters, but is it honest enough for you?”

  “Yes,” Cedric said, still smiling. “And at least part of it does matter.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that?”

  “You finally admit I’m good-looking.”

  Liv’s jaw dropped, and when she looked over to Cedric—the real Cedric, not his reflection—she saw he was barely suppressing a grin. She could feel one starting to spread across her face as well. She picked up the pillow from the bed and threw it at him. He dodged it easily.

  “You’re hilarious,” Liv said, deadpan.

  “Yes, and good-looking, don’t forget.”

  “And humble.”

  “Oh, extremely humble. The most humble in all the land.” Cedric’s voice broke into laughter on the last word.

  Liv buried her face in her hands, trying to smother the laughter bubbling up. But it was a losing battle.

  “Ah, yes,” Liv said, trying to suck in a deep breath between laughs, “this is definitely a normal reaction for a person to have to all of this. Hysterics. Is this a sign that I’m finally going crazy?”

  Cedric shrugged. “How should I know? You all seem crazy to me here. You know, I looked into a building once, with a huge window that faced a roadway. And I saw hordes of people running in place on these large machines. Just running and running and not going anywhere. That is crazy.”

  “I actually agree with you on that one,” Liv said.

  “And I’ve seen women walking along, pushing dogs in carts. Dogs.”

  Liv burst into a fit of laughter again. Cedric joined her, and this time it took longer for the two of them to recover.

  “I think I needed that,” she said, finally catching her breath.

  “Me too.”

  Listening to her breath normalizing, Liv felt lighter, like she always did after a laughing fit. But then she looked around the room, with its grim curtains and years-old bedspread. The confusion of their situation, and all of their unanswered questions, began to rise up again.

  Without thinking, Liv reached for her shoulder blade. Cedric was watching her. The remains of his smile slipped from his eyes. They took on that dark, hooded look again, following her hands to where they rested near her back.

  “Can I see it again?” he asked.

  Liv thought for a moment, then removed her jacket for the second time that evening. She half turned on the bed so that her back was facing Cedric, then slipped down the straps of her tank top.

  She heard him behind her, inching closer to where she sat on the bed.

  “If I had seen your tattoo before, I might have noticed . . .”

  “I don’t really make a habit of showing it to people,” Liv said, trying to keep her voice light.

  “If the professor has no more information to provide, maybe we can locate these foster parents you spoke of,” Cedric said. “Perhaps they know the whereabouts of the true scrolls.”

  “Maybe,” Liv responded. She didn’t really want to think about the Hannigans right now. She couldn’t think of anything with Cedric’s body so near to her own. The small hairs rose on the back of her neck, and she tried not to shiver. Which became harder when he reached out a finger and placed it gently on the skin just over her shoulder blade, where the tattoo began.

  “Is this okay?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  Liv struggled to remember how to talk.

  “Yes.”

  “I do not know what these symbols mean. We no longer have the whole language, just pieces of it. My tutor tried to teach me the ancient symbols, but I never paid as much attention to our studies as Emme. I only remember a few.”

  “Like the one for knowledge,” Liv said, glancing down at the pad of paper that sat at the edge of the bed.

  “Yes. And the markings we carve onto our weapons. Some others.”

  “Like what?”

  “There is an ancient word carved above the main entrance of our castle. It means protector, and it begins with a letter that looks sort of like this one . . .”

  Cedric’s finger moved lightly from the tip of her shoulder blade, tracing down across her skin, following the swoops and arcs of the tattoo. Liv shut her eyes tight, blocking out everything in the room that wasn’t the motion of his hand. Then his finger stopped moving, having reached the end of the tattoo. Liv shifted slowly, turning on the bed so that she was facing him. His face was only inches from hers, and she could make out with perfect clarity the lines of his cheekbones, the shape of his eyes, his mouth . . .

  “Liv,” Cedric whispered, his voice hoarse. He reached up with one hand and touched her cheek. She leaned in closer. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t even a thought, really. Thoughts were gone. There was just his face, and his touch, and his breath.

  “Who are you?” he whispered again, this time so low she could barely make it out. But if there was an answer to that question, she didn’t know it. She didn’t say anything back. Instead, she leaned forward, her lips getting closer to his, then brushing against them . . .

  All of a sudden a huge, shattering noise cut through the night, breaking through their perfect, near-silent bubble. Liv and Cedric flew back from each other, both turning to look at the wide, gaping space where the hotel window had been just moments before.

  Pieces of glass fell across the rough carpeting of the room. It was dark out, but Liv could make out the shapes of men standing outside the window frame. They were wearing dark robes with hoods that covered their faces.

  Cedric jumped up first, blocking the bed and Liv from the group outside. He reached into his waistband and pulled out a small knife. Liv couldn’t even be annoyed that he’d gone against her wishes and brought a weapon with him on the trip. Cedric had been right all along.

  They were never safe.

  Liv looked around for an exit, but the only thing on the far side of the room was a windowless bathroom. A connecting door led between the motel room and the one right next to it, but Liv knew it would be bolted shut from the other side. The main door was right next to the window, and therefore right next to the advancing figures.

  Liv counted five of them, and as they moved forward, she could see that their robes were actually a dark red. None of their faces were visible under their hoods.

  “Halt!” Cedric yelled out. “Come no closer.” He waved his knife in the air with his right hand. With his left, he reached to pick up a lamp from the nightsta
nd by the bed. He held it clenched in one fist, aiming the bright bulb toward the figures.

  The hooded man closest to them—he could reach an arm through the window and touch the bright end of Cedric’s lamp if he wanted—gave a low laugh.

  “And you will fight us all off with a toothpick and a lamp, then?” The man stepped right across the threshold of the window, and in one quick movement his right arm shot out and twisted Cedric’s knife hand. Cedric swung out with the lamp, but the man ducked. Another figure came forward and grabbed the knife from Cedric’s trapped hand.

  Before Cedric could react, the first man reached up and removed his hood. The lamp lit his face from below, making his features look hideously distorted. Dark, triangular shadows rose from the sides of his nose and the lids of his eyes. It took Liv a couple of seconds before she recognized him, with his face as warped-looking as it was. But once she realized who it was standing before her in a blood-red robe, she was finally able to release the scream lodged in her throat.

  Professor Billings did nothing but laugh.

  THE KNIGHTS OF VALOR

  “Run!” Cedric cried. He wrenched his arm free and stood to face the professor.

  Liv scrambled off the other edge of the bed, looking desperately for some place to run to. She saw Cedric swing his arm down and smash the lamp against the hotel room floor. The shade popped off the end, and the lightbulb smashed, sending the room into darkness.

  Through the dim light that trickled into the room from the street, Liv saw Cedric swing out with the remains of the lamp, which now had broken shards of lightbulb sticking from its end. Professor Billings jumped back from the sharp edge of the lamp, and it whirred past him harmlessly.

  The robed figures swarmed into the room behind the professor. Two of them moved to block the front door. Liv turned and ran across the room, to the connecting door.

  “Help! Help us!” Liv pounded her fist against the door, but the men were right behind her. One thick arm reached out and clamped down on her shoulder, while another wrapped itself around her waist, squeezing the breath from her lungs.

  “Cedric!” she choked out. She tried kicking her legs out at the two men who held her, but every time she flung a limb, one of them was there to grab it and hold it still. Soon she was completely immobile.

  Liv twisted her head to see Cedric standing on the bed, brandishing his lamp down at the professor and two more robed figures who flanked him.

  “There’s no point in fighting,” Professor Billings said, his voice calm.

  Cedric responded by thrusting the end of his lamp up to the edge of the professor’s jaw, just centimeters from the skin of his neck. The professor merely smiled in response. In the dim light pouring in through the broken window, the whites of Cedric’s eyes grew in fear.

  “Who are you, really?”

  “Did the robes not give us away? We are the Knights of Valere. An ancient sect, tasked to keep this world safe from its most dangerous threat.” The professor smiled, his eyes once again twinkling like they had in his office. “We’re the good guys.”

  Cedric clenched the lamp tighter. “I have a little trouble believing that at this precise moment.”

  “I understand that you’re frightened. But put that thing away before anyone gets hurt,” the professor said, his voice calm.

  One of the robed men holding Liv squeezed her arm, and she yelped. Cedric’s gaze flashed quickly to Liv, and after a second’s pause, he pulled the broken lamp a few inches from the professor’s neck.

  “We are not your enemy,” Cedric said, voice tight. “We only wanted answers.”

  Professor Billings shook his head slowly. “You know, I do believe you. At first, I even believed that ridiculous story about doing research for a paper. . . . But then, when I saw her back . . .” The professor looked to Liv, his eyes narrowing. “I had to call reinforcements and follow you here. I cannot stand by and risk her being used to open a portal and let the greatest evil ever known filter back into this world.”

  “Use her to open the . . .” Cedric trailed off as he shook his head faintly. Then his body went completely still. He looked over at Liv, meeting her eyes. Seeing the understanding and fear written all over his face, Liv couldn’t deny the truth of the professor’s words. The truth etched upon her back.

  She was the one who could open the portal to Cedric’s world. She was the scroll.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Professor Billings said, and he sounded almost gentle. Except he obviously wasn’t. It was the worst kind of pretending. “I imagine it comes as quite a shock to you. After all, I don’t believe you would have shown me your markings if you knew what they really were, or who I really was. Poor child, you really did believe it was a tattoo, didn’t you?”

  “But . . . ,” Liv sputtered. Of course the markings were a tattoo. They were permanent, after all. She didn’t remember getting them, but that’s because she’d been so young. At the mercy of crazy foster parents. It had to be a tattoo. What else could it have been?

  “Everything I told you at the office is true,” the professor said. “Though the mythical scrolls of Caelum are real, very much so. And they’re not printed on any ancient paper lost to the centuries. No piece of paper could hold that kind of power. Only human energy could contain the power of the scrolls. Don’t you understand?” The professor looked at Liv, his eyes imploring. “Don’t you see how dangerous you are?”

  “No,” Liv managed. “I’m not. Honestly, there’s been a mistake . . .”

  The professor shook his head, and the arm around Liv’s throat tightened.

  “Our ancestors used willing sacrifices to create the first portal and expel the wrath threat from our world. What they didn’t know—what none of them could have foreseen—was that their acts would outlast them. Twenty years after the portal was opened and wraths were banished from the earth, a group of children was discovered in an outlying village. They were covered in marks, the same marks that had been imprinted on the first human scrolls. The magic didn’t die, you see, but tied itself to the human race. Earth magic can be . . . tricky like that. Even when you think it’s completely gone, it can pop up in the most unexpected of places. Like that carnival game, Whac-a-Mole.”

  The professor grinned at his own joke. Liv felt sick.

  “Every twenty years or so, a group of new children with the markings would be discovered. Which meant they had the power to open a portal.”

  Liv wanted to fight the words he was saying, to convince herself they were lies, but so much of it was starting to click. She remembered the wrath in the alley, the one who had let her go moments after tearing the back of her shirt. . . . And then returned the next night with backup. They’d come back looking for her. They knew. They knew what she was.

  Cedric’s hand tightened on the lamp end. “What happened to them? The children?”

  Professor Billings’s eyes flashed for just a moment, and his face was grave once again. “The order did what had to be done. To prevent horror from falling upon us. The scrolls did not belong in this world.” He gave a tiny shake of his head. “We had to whack the moles.”

  A shiver shot down Liv’s back. Her voice cut through the room. “You killed them.”

  The professor lowered his eyes to the floor. “Yes. To protect the world, yes.”

  “But every twenty years since the Middle Ages, that’s . . . so many . . .”

  “It is a terrible but sacred birthright to find the scrolls in every generation and eliminate them. It was the job of my father before me, and his father before him.”

  Everything in the room seemed suddenly hazy. It was only when her eyes caught Cedric’s that Liv was able to regain some focus. Even in the darkened room, his bright eyes shone out. But instead of fear, they were shining with anger.

  They held eye contact for just a moment before Cedric flicked his eyes over to the door behind her that connected their room to the next room over. Cedric gave a tiny raise of his eyebr
ow, and Liv gave the briefest of nods in return.

  Professor Billings looked in mock sadness at his own hands, clasped before him. “And now, my dear, you must know what happens next.”

  Liv stayed perfectly still, waiting for any movement from Cedric.

  “It’s not that we want to, of course,” the professor continued. “You seem like a perfectly lovely girl. But even if you yourself mean no harm, it would be too easy for you to fall into the wrong hands. That’s why we cannot let you leave this room alive.”

  The professor reached down into his robe and took out a silver object that reflected the light of the street lamps outside the window. He flipped it open, revealing a long blade, sharpened to a point.

  It was then that Cedric started to laugh. At first it was low, almost disbelieving. Then it grew louder and louder. The robed men standing behind Liv shifted uneasily. She used the small amount of room this afforded her to situate her elbow between herself and the ribs of the man closest to her. She kept it there, ready.

  As Cedric laughed, the professor’s features pulled taut in annoyance. “What do you find so funny?”

  “You,” Cedric said, shaking his head and grinning. “You really love to hear yourself talk. And after all your self-righteous speeches, this is what you’ve come to threaten us with? A single blade?”

  “You think this is amusing?” the professor asked, his voice dropping into a low growl.

  “I think I know something you do not,” Cedric said, keeping his voice light. “You may know what she is, but you clearly have no idea what I am.” Cedric’s mouth curled up into a smile. “Allow me to educate you, Professor.”

  Cedric’s arm was moving before he even finished the sentence. He swung it around so fast that Liv could barely tell what he was doing. Only when the professor stumbled and fell to one knee did she realize that Cedric had hit him in the face with the blunt end of the lamp.

  One of the robed men near the bed bent down to aid the professor, while the other advanced on Cedric. He spun around and kicked out straight. Liv heard the crack as Cedric’s foot connected with the face of the robed man. Cedric leaped off the bed toward Liv.